13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar

The 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar was a mountain infantry division of the German Waffen-SS that was active from 1943 to 1945 during World War II. The division took its name from the handschar fighting knife carried by Ottoman police during the Ottoman rule over the Balkans, and it consisted of Muslim Bosniak enlisted men and German and volksdeutsche officers. Its formation marked the expansion of the Waffen-SS into a multi-ethnic military force, becoming its first non-Germanic division. From March to December 1944, the division fought a counter-insurgency campaign against the Yugoslav Partisans in the Independent State of Croatia, and its non-Germanic troops deserted en masse in late 1944. In the winter of 1944-1945, the division was sent to the Baranja region of southern Hungary, falling back from a series of defensive lines. Most of the remaining Bosniaks returned home, while others fled west and surrendered to the British Army. 38 officers would be extradited to Yugoslavia to face war crimes charges, and 10 of them were executed.